


all our love came out of the woodwork (and all our pain seeped out of the walls)

by noxes



Category: Undertale (Video Game), underswap
Genre: :(, Angst, Anxiety, Bullying, Chara has anxiety and depression, Chara is nonbinary, Chara is sarcastic, Child Chara, Depression, Distrust, Fluff, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, He just doesn't know it yet :P, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Knives, LATER, Nightmares, OCs but they're really fun I swear, Panic Attacks, Papyrus is A Dad, Please let me know if I got something wrong, Running away from home, Soft Chara, Suicide Attempt, Touch-Starved, Triggers, Weird-ass updating schedule, but also in desperate need of an actual family, will tag more as I go along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-08 23:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13468887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxes/pseuds/noxes
Summary: Once upon a time, a human in a green sweater fell. They were the eighth to fall. They didn’t have a name or a gender or a family - not, at least, one that they wanted to acknowledge.This is their story.





	1. real stress over imaginary problems (is what they like to tell you even though it's not true)

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings. I am -----.
> 
> (Title credits go to Sleeping at Last.)

You knew from a very very young age that your name wasn’t Chris. Your parents called you Chris and your “friends” did too. (There was no need for the kids to pretend in front of their parents, their parents who told them to be nice to the weird kid who didn’t know how to talk. At a very young age you became a very good liar.) Your teachers called you Chris. _Chris_ , they said in class, _where is Chris?_ And you put your hand up like a good boy even though the name wasn’t yours.

 

You did know how to talk. You just never got the chance. Your father got mad one night, threw a bottle, yelled, grabbed your neck and

s q u e e z e d

until your voice your voice your voice was gone.

 

The _crack_ of small bones, the bitching of your mother about the hospital bill as the ambulance took you away - these are the things you remember. Not much else. Not much except yourself, alone, aware of the tubes and the wires and the pain.

 

And the sheet on your hospital bed. The sheet was nice. Very soft. When no one was around, you rubbed and tugged at the fabric with fascination and dreamy bliss. The world settled a little, not so swirly and static-y and heavy with loud voices.

 

You hated noise and arguing, and from a very young age you learned to avoid it.

 

Your voice never healed. Not really. You could rasp, could stutter a few words before it began to hurt. For days and days you would go down to the library after school and sit in a squishy armchair and read ASL books. Buy cinnamon rolls and pop with your lunch money, and try to forget that home was an empty metal box with a man who smelled bad and a woman who didn’t want you.

 

You let your bad-kid-cold-kid exterior slip in September. You wanted to start over. You had made a friend, a real one. A nice one, you thought. Sally.

 

You liked Sally. She was nice to you and talked to you about girl stuff. She thought your real name was Sarah, and for a while, you did too.

 

The other kids sneered at you for being a liar, liar, liar. You told them you had lied - you actually weren’t a boy. You were a girl named Sarah. Your parents knew that you were a girl.

 

The kids believed you. They were seven, after all. You just had wanted it to be an experiment - to see if Sarah fit you better than Chris. And it did - for a little bit.

 

Two and a half weeks later, like wearing a shoe that’s too small, you knew that Sarah didn’t fit you either.

 

You wanted to cry, but crying made _him_ angry. Boys don’t cry. You crawled onto your bed and ducked under your unwashed covers and reached down for the foot of the bed, for the little scrap of cloth you snipped off your hospital sheet with the nurse’s surgical scissors, stolen from her pocket. You rubbed the fraying fabric between your fingers and counted to one hundred and twenty seven.

 

You held it inside you for three days. Three days and eight hours before you told Sally, and Sally, your buddy, your pal, your friend, she went and told everybody.

 

You got home and _he_ was drunk off his ass like usual and _she_ slapped you and shook you and threatened to get the belt and told you to say something, dammit.

 

You knew you couldn’t, but did _she_? She did, but _she_ didn’t care. You were the mistake, the unhappy little accident.

 

You ran away three days later.


	2. the sound of the branches breaking under your feet/the smell of the falling and burning leaves (and other "whys" and "hows" of the human psyche)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The obligatory "whoopsie, I fell down mountain that nobody comes back from" reason chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gender dysphoria warning (please take this child away from me, i'm so mean to them)

You woke up in purple.

 

Purple was nice. Purple wasn’t your favorite color, but it was nice and cool and calming all the same.

 

Purple...petals.

 

Your head tilts to the side and you see flowers. An endless sea of flowers.

 

You turn and look up, at the tiny, tiny window of outside, letting in buttery yellow light, illuminating every dust mote lingering lazily in the cool, slightly musty air.

 

Musty like a cave.

 

Like a…

 

_You walked when you couldn’t run anymore. Your cheerfully yellow boots made you a target, an easy target. You snapped at strangers who tried to help you, because nobody really wanted to help. Not really. They just wanted you to trust them, so they could rip you apart. Like Sally, your buddy, your pal, Sally Sally Sally who told the whole school that you didn’t like being a boy or a girl._

 

_Sally who stood with everyone in the schoolyard - right at the back - and threw pebbles and fruit and a glass bottle at you. Cut on your cheek. Gash on your leg. Nurse sighed at you when you came into the office, not crying, but stiff and small. The gash twinges as you walk, reminding you to never trust anyone._

 

_Words float around you, words that you barely hear over the buzzing in your head._

 

_“...found this little boy, I think he’s…”_

 

_“...supposed to be in school? Maybe she’s…”_

 

_“...his parents?...”_

 

_“...her family…”_

 

_“...he…”_

 

_“...she…”_

 

_Him. Her. He. She. WHY do you need to be one or the other?! What’s so bad about not wanting to be a boy?!_

 

_Why do people hate you so much for it?_

 

_Him. Her. Chris. Sarah._

 

 _They weren’t_ you _, these names. They didn’t fit you. They were names of nice kids who listened to their nice parents, not you. You were screwed up in the head since you were born and your mother cried and begged the doctors to kill you._

 

_You walk to a mountain and start climbing it without even realizing, so lost in your swirling thoughts that you don’t notice the walk steadily shifting uphill. The only thing that pulls you out of your whys is the conspicuous lack of people._

 

_There’s nobody here. Nobody but you and a little white flower and a large storm cloud, thick and heavy with rain. You stand there, drinking in the cooling fall air and the sharp smell of leaves and the soft touches of the rain on your shoulders and face. You tilt your head up to the rain, letting it wash your dirty face and pull your tangled hair all neat and tidy around your shoulders. You lift your little hands up and let your thoughts sing tunelessly as the rain comes down hard and beats your identity and your parents and your name away from you in a heady white rush, until all that’s left is a small child in a dingy green sweater and the first real smile they’ve worn in years._

 

_You’re still smiling when you jump into the endless pit, the cold air singing as it goes past your ears._

 

You squeeze your eyes shut tightly to get rid of the buzzing. It doesn’t work.

 

You prop yourself up on your elbows and put a hand to your spinning head. You don’t feel like any of your bones are broken, but you are very sore.

 

Makes sense. You just fell down a mountain.

 

You slowly sit up all the way, taking inventory. _Arms?_ Fine. _Legs?_ Fine-ish. _Head?_ Feels like it’s about to fall off your shoulders, but whole.

 

_Memories?_

 

...

 

Sadly, they too are intact.

 

At the far end of the room, a movement. A squeaky voice. Light flashing off of needle teeth and marble eyes.

 

“hOI!!!111!!!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alternatively:
> 
> "he-hewwo!"


	3. best friends to the end of the beginning of the end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *It laughs at you. It calls to you. 
> 
> *It wants to be your friend.

You’re on your feet, ignoring the tightness in your chest, the buzzing ache in your head. The purple petals don’t extend as far as you thought they did - you somehow,  _ somehow _ , managed to land on a patch of flowers about five feet across.

 

You have no time to ponder your good luck. The thing in front of you takes priority, this...this…

 

What the hell  _ is _ this???

 

It’s an...animal. Stuffed? You can see stitches, and the fur looks more like cloth. It looks like a cross between a cat and a dog, wearing a blue and yellow-striped sweater. Grey shaggy hair covers its head, and dual pairs of cat and dog ears flop comically over its head. It’s pretty big, actually, for a stuffed animal, but you’ve seen stuffed animals the size of people in shop windows, and this is a little smaller than that.

 

It would look like a normal stuffed animal if it weren’t for the fluid movements, the expressive face, the teeth that look like tiny white pins, bared in a somewhat unsettling smile.

 

You swallow, and look for a weapon. Spotting a branch, you lunge for it, fingers closing around the rough bark so hard it scrapes slightly. You raise your branch, giving the thing your best “don’t mess with me, I’ll fuck you up” look. (It took many long hours in front of a mirror to perfect, the day after you walked home with a black eye, a bloody nose.  _ He _ cuffed your ear as you shot past him for being late. You knew you had to keep the kids away from you when you walked home.) 

 

The thing calls itself “Tem de Temmie” and its voice is disjointed and choppy. Something about it makes your buzzing-pain headache increase; you wince, take one hand off the branch and touch your head, rubbing the space between your eyebrows. 

 

Tem prattles continuously about “de UnDergrOUNd!!!1!” and the monsters living there. Monsters? Monsters lived here? Would they try to eat you?

 

Were they nicer, you wonder, than humans?

 

You only tune in when something red pops out of your chest. Tem grins and explains that “dAt dEre is Yo SOUL, dE vErY comBinAtiOn of yO bEINg!” 

 

Your...soul?

 

You stare at it. It glows very faintly in a deep, fire-engine red. It’s rather small, even though you are small for your age, have always been. Your chest feels weird without it, like there was something heavy and warm there your whole life, and now you feel lighter and colder. You’re not sure if you like the feeling.

 

Tem talks about EXP. It talks about leveling up.

 

It talks about LOVE.

 

Its tone. Like the nurse at school when she gets the hammer to test your reflexes on your gashed leg. You tense automatically, suspicion written in your furrowed brow, your downturned mouth. 

 

White, spinning flakes appear. Floating around Tem’s head, making a buzzing noise, buzzing buzzing like your headache. You move experimentally and are delighted to see your soul moves with you.

 

Of course, if that little heart-shaped glowy red thing is you, then of course it knows what to do. Of course it knows that anybody who tries to be nice to you is just using you, manipulating you, trying to get you compliant and soft so they can open your chest and your heart and see all the horrible, horrible things there. Your soul knows Tem is bad.

 

The flakes spin towards you in a clump. You jump to the side, yanking your soul with you. As one comes towards you, you react instinctively, swinging your stick like a baseball bat, because  _ dammit, even though you  _ jumped _ down this mountain you are  _ not _ dying at the paws of a stuffed animal _ . You find your target squarely in the middle of the flake, sending it ricocheting back at the surprised catdog.

 

You grin and whisper “pow” under your breath as the flake hits Tem square in the face.

 

Tem slowly looks at you, unmistakeable malice flickering in its marble eyes before its face splits in a manic grin, laughter echoing in your head, bouncing off the the walls of the chamber, the inside of your skull. You shout, shout to block the noise, hold the stick in the crook of your arm and cover your ears and listen to your voice crack and break.

 

Tem’s voice is no longer choppy. No longer static-y. Now it is clear and cruel, piercing through your hands and drilling into your eardrums.

 

**“Wow, it’s been a** **_long_ ** **time since I’ve been hit. You seem to know the true meaning of this world already, so I guess I don’t have to teach you!”**

 

You try not to listen. You run at it with the stick raised, still yelling (even though it  _ hurts _ ) to block the buzzing buzzing buzzing.

 

It surrounds you with a ring of the flakes and you don’t stop in time. Pain explodes in your body and burns like hot fire across your skin and you fall, trying to bring the stick up, trying to hit it. Standing at the end of the room. Laughing at you, high, grating giggles.

 

**“ D I E . “**

 

The flakes close in close in, you curl up but it’s not enough, it’s too small, it's too small, you-

 

_ -can’t breathe can’t breathe it’s so small the closet is too small you can’t breathe and you can hear your mother walk away with the key in her hand and she doesn’t let you out till dinnertime and you can’t breathe you can’t- _

 

“-attacking such a small child. Shame on them!”

 

A man’s voice. Deep and steady and kind. A huge, soft hand, big enough to hold you, steadying your body.

 

“Do not worry, little one. I will heal you…”

 

This is too much for you right now. Too much. Too much.

 

You beg the darkness to take you away and, mercifully, it complies.


	4. laugh on the smoke/breathe on the snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected development. A maybe-friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enter the lazy skeledad, or whatever

You clutch the plastic knife to your chest and listen to the door close behind you with a  _ click _ . The sound echoes with an awful finality through the woods.

 

Woods. Snow. You are  _ underground. _ Why is it snowing? How do trees grow down here? There’s no sunlight-

 

You choke on your breath.

 

There’s no sunlight. 

 

You can suddenly feel the tons of rock directly over you. It’s cold down here, and dark, and empty, and _scary._ _He_ tells you that you’re a boy, and boys aren’t scared of anything, and here you are, trembling in your yellow boots. Pathetic. You shiver and tell yourself it’s because you’re cold and almost believe yourself.

You have to move forward. You don’t want to focus on the “why”s. You need to get out of here, no questions asked.

 

Compose yourself. You inhale and hold it and exhale with a  _ fwoof _ and giggle when you see a misty smoke cloud poof from your lips. The laugh echoes through the woods and cuts through your fear, and you relax a little.

 

You step forward onto the path and walk, still snickering over the mist trailing from your lips and trying to blow smoke rings without success, and unexpected burst falling legs-flailingly into a big puffy snowbank and popping up grinning, adjusting the ribbon on your head that you took cuz it’s pretty.

 

You hum a wheezy, tuneless little song and dance a few steps, and  **crack** a branch breaks behind you in three places, like a giant stepped on it and broke it into firewood.

 

You look at it and swallow, feeling suddenly very very cold. Looking at that innocent-looking stick. The buzzing comes back and you drop the knife and scrabble at your head, trying to rip it out of you. You hear a chuckle.

 

Pick up the knife, pick up the knife and  _ run, run like your life depends on it  _ **_THAT’S RIGHT GO AND RUN AND HIDE YOU LITTLE SHIT IT’S THE MOST YOU DESERVE GET OUT OF MY HOUSE YOU WASTE OF AIR AND SPACE YOU PATHETIC WORTHLESS LITTLE_ **

 

_**PARASITE** _

\----

You glare at the sky, or the ceiling, or whatever, and are very tempted to flip off the rock that tripped you in your blind panic, sent you tumbling head-over-heels like an uncoordinated klutz. ( _ “You useless, clumsy brat, you can’t do anything right, can you?” _ ) The same chuckle from earlier comes from behind you and a little of the primal fear from before reignites and sends you scrambling to your feet with the knife held protectively in front of you and it’s a  _ skeleton. _ Literally an animated, moving skeleton wearing an orange sweatshirt with a fluffy hood and big pockets.

 

You feel a momentary pang of jealousy. Your parents never bought you comfy clothing, and you were always envious of the kids whose clothes actually  _ have functioning pockets. _ He’s probably cleared the nine foot mark even with his slouch, and you were pretty sure he was skinny as a rail under that puffy sweatshirt (dammit, that looks comfortable).

 

He’s smoking a cigarette, and he’s talking but you don’t hear him because you’re too tense.

 

_ He _ smoked.  _ He _ smoked thin white-and-orange cigarettes. A puckered mark on your back burns with a phantom pain.

 

And yet. And yet, his relaxed demeanor permeates the atmosphere, making your tense shoulders drop slightly. And yet, he makes no moves to attack you. And yet, his jokes are funny, and the light flaring in his expressive eye sockets flicks between wariness (understandable, he’s already let on that he knows you’re a human, and you’ve seen what humans are capable of for yourself) and an unexpected kindness.

 

He puns on your height and you stick your tongue out at him, and you know he’s not dangerous when you hear his laugh. Not the not-really-menacing chuckle you heard earlier (your butt aches at the memory), but a real laugh, from deep in his ribcage, rich and full and warm.

  
You give him the benefit of the doubt and stick the knife in your back pocket and maybe, although your brain is screaming  _ no no no _ , maybe like him...a little bit. He seems like a likable person.


	5. that is not an echo that you hear/that is someone else, screaming back at you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THE MAGNIFICENT SANS HAS ARRIVED!

You like Sans, too.  _ You don’t like Sans, either. _

 

He’s kind and encouraging.  _ He’s loud and scary. _

 

Sans doesn’t want to hurt you, you can tell _ yelling is bad. Yelling is red and putrid yellow and smells like burning things and it’s bad.  _

 

The smaller voice that you tried to squash cuz it only got you hurt piped up and pointed out, annoyingly, that Sans yelled  _ all the time _ , whether he was happy or affronted or just talking. No matter who he was talking to. He just had a loud voice.

 

He is also six feet tall and...somehow chubby? Monsters are weird, but Sans is pushing it. 

 

“HUMAN!” he booms excitedly right next to you, and your shoulders jump up around your ears, your fingers twitching towards the knife hidden in your pocket. If Sans notices, he gives no sign. “WE ARE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT PUZZLE! ARE YOU READY???”

 

You can hear the three question marks in his voice, and normally you’d question it, but hell, not even physics can beat Sans, why would basic laws of sound be any different? Hearing punctuation is not the weirdest thing you’ve seen today. Not by far. You nod at him and trot behind him, stumbling a little on a snow poff.

 

Dang, you want to sleep. You want a bed-

 

_ -wrists tied to the bedposts as you wail at his retreating back- _

 

You want a blanket and a pillow and a place to put your head down and hum and count and rub the piece of fraying hospital sheet in your pocket that you grabbed before you left because you knew they didn’t want you and you knew they would destroy any and all traces that you’d ever existed, and you didn’t want them to take this piece of you when you died.

 

When you died.

 

Papyrus is omnipresent, you notice. He’s literally everywhere, greeting people casually, complimenting them, telling the worst(best) jokes you’ve ever heard. The monsters wave at you, smiling, or maybe call out to you. Sooner or later, though, their reaction is the same: they put their hand down slowly, and their expression becomes one of bewildered worry, and they whisper behind their hands. Some of them try to offer their children’s old coats, cold medicine, new shoes. You shake your head and continue.

 

You don’t care. You ignore the wind howling in your ears, the painful numbness in your toes and bare fingers. Papyrus casually makes a quip about how red your nose and ears are getting, but he seems concerned despite the joking demeanor he carries.

 

Sans is not dangerous or painful, yet. His puzzles are...fun...some of them. The Amazing!!!! Invisible!!!! Electric!!!! Maze!!!! is cool, and you snort despite yourself and sign across the clearing to ask if he’s okay when he totally shocks himself, the dweeb.

 

As time goes on, however, you notice a subtle change. Sans seems more tense, like he’s waiting for something. Papyrus shows up less and less, and whenever you do see him, he’s watching you very carefully. The skeleton brothers (and honestly, how can they be brothers, they look  _ nothing _ alike) originally struck you as some of the least scary monsters down here yet, but now they have an aura about them that draws your shoulders up and makes your hand itch for the feeling of the knife in it (for several  _ your arm burns with phantom pain your fingers fit around the handle of the kitchen knife easily your mother calls you a bitchy brat and calls you weak and makes you clean up your own blood from the floor _ reasons).

 

The Gauntlet of Deadly Terror ignites the old, primal “I’m going to die” fear that you’ve gotten used to. Sans tugs a lever and nervously states that maaaaybe this one is a little too...advanced for an amateur puzzler. You’re tempted to call bullshit, cuz he’s been calling you “The Legendary Puzzlemaster” for the past hour, a nickname you secretly kind of like, but you don’t question his decision, just give him a fragile sort-of grin ( _ not a smile, never a smile, you smiled at Sally and no one else and look where that got you, you idiot _ ) and wonder in the back of your head why he stopped, why he seems to genuinely like you, why you can’t trust your instincts anymore because they’re telling you to trust him like a fool.

 

_ Sans is loud and bad. _ His gloves and bandana are a soft shade of blue.

_ Sans is trying to get you to lower your guard. _ He is trying to help you solve the puzzles, giving you tips and smiling at you encouragingly.

 

_ Sans wants to hurt you _ . Sans wants to be your friend.

 

_ Sally was your friend. _ Sally isn’t Sans.

 

_ Sally was your friend. _

 

Sally was a human.

 

The buzzing, it’s worse now. You hold your head and fall to your knees in a secluded wooded area. Not as shut-off as you’d hoped for, but your head is full of static and voices, voices.

* * *

 

_ The crow-thing is big, not as tall as you, but much bigger than the birds on the surface. Its black, round eyes remind you of plush stuffing and noise and pain in a round room with a hole leading to the world you hated. The world that hated you. _

 

_ It’s eyes are different from Tem’s, though. Intelligent, in a birdish sort of way. It almost looks like a surface crow, if not for the tiny claws on the end of its wings, the fact that it comes up to your chin. The intelligent eyes. _

 

_ “Most of the monsters want to be kind, but if one of us is mean, the chance that they'll hide it is slim. And if someone is mean to you, there will be others who'll defend you. But if you don't trust us, you don't have to.” _

 

_ You put the stick up. Don’t trust them don’t trust them. They just want to hurt you. _

 

**_*Chara._ **

_ You shake your head and glare at the crow. It hops back a step but regards you calmly. _

**_*Chara, listen to the bird._ **

Gee, thanks for the helpful advice!  _ you snap back.  _ Listen the bird who’s shooting feather-bullets at me!

 

_ An exasperated sigh.  _ **_*Chara, the feathers don’t hurt. They’re green, see? The bird’s trying to heal you._ **

 

_ You almost call bullshit. Almost. Then you remember that you can  _ feel _ your passenger - all of them. Their emotions. Their thoughts. Whoever they are, they, at least, don’t want to hurt you. _

 

_ You’re pretty sure they’re a kid. Like you. Kids were bad on the surface, but they weren’t as bad as the adults. You formed a shaky alliance with them. _

 

_ You’re starting to seriously regret your decision. Your guide is a snarky little ass who’s almost gotten you killed on more than one occasion with their damned MERCY.  They’ve saved your bacon more times than they’ve almost fried it, though, so you grudgingly put up with their gentle quirks and nudging. _

 

_ It’s...you’ve grown used to the feeling of the warm presence in the back of your mind. Like a tiny hole that you didn’t even know about had suddenly been filled. _

 

_ The crow watches you. It doesn’t come any closer. It flicks a green feather at you. Trying not to flinch, you reach out and brush it with a small finger as it lazily wisps past you, then draw back, inhaling suddenly, as warmth floods your whole hand. You feel better. You reluctantly stuff the knife in your back pocket. _

 

_ You ask the bird to prove it. It almost seems to smile. _

 

_ “Monsters are made of love, hope, and compassion. We don’t hurt children easily, regardless of species. If a monster is attacking you, you can bet they either don’t know you’re a child, or they’re fighting themselves to hurt you. Use that. Good luck.” _

 

_ The crow doesn’t fly away, strangely enough. It flicks a few gold pieces at you, then turns and uses its little wing-claws to scramble up the wall, spider-style. _

 

_ Nobody’s around to see you smile, so you grin and tuck the gold away for later, then spin and march jauntily out of the chamber, thinking about the crow’s words. _

 

_ Asgore’s deep, rich baritone rings out down the corridor. Calling your name, your new name. Your grin widens for a moment. Then you remember the world is out to get you, check yourself, and wipe the smile off your face. You hear your passenger sigh, but they’ve never bugged you about your paranoia. You assume that the “feeling the other’s emotions” thing goes both ways, and they know the hell you went through to get here. _

 

_ You appreciate it. _

* * *

 

You hiss and scrabble at your head. It hurts, it hurts a lot. The cold wind knifes through your sweater like it’s not there at all, making you shiver convulsively. The snow is high here, and the hem of your shorts are wet, to say nothing of your yellow boots.

 

You know you’re getting sick, mostly from the worried noises your passenger is making, though they’re getting hard to hear through the combined efforts of the roaring in your ears and the ever constant buzzing pain of your chronic headaches. The voices, the voices that say  _ you are stupid and hideous and worthless and burdensome and everybody hates you because who wants to keep a crazy child around, that’s all you are, crazy, and you think you’re not a boy, which is stupid, and what the hell kind of name is  _ Chara _ , anyway, that’s stupid, you’re stupid, stupid stupid stupid  _ stupid stupid  **STUPID STUPID STUPIDCHARA BREATHE YOU’RE SPIRALING AGAIN YOU NEED TO BREATHE**

 

Oh. Right. Shit. You try to suck in a breath but your chest is too tight. It feels like a metal band is wrapped around the inside of your ribcage. You try to breathe, but the band isn’t loosening like it usually does. Adrenaline hums under your skin. Your mind sings with fear.

 

The “steel band” feeling isn’t new. What’s scaring you right now is that it’s  _ not going away _ . You can’t breathe. You can’t breathe. Breathing loosens the band, but you can’t breathe can’t breathe.

 

You can’t breathe. You’re aware of the other yelling at you to calm down from a tunnel a million miles away, but they’re getting quieter, getting farther away.

 

You’re floating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The little crow thing is actually my friend Sketchy's monster OC! It's an adorable fluffy bean <3
> 
> Also, on a side note: I'm putting this fic on a hiatus. I do, however, have some more of it pre-written, and I'll post that. Once I get my muse back- and I have no doubt that I will- I'll pick up the story again.
> 
> °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°


	6. when you hit the bottom/who picks you up/does anybody pick you up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are not your dreams.
> 
> This is not your death.

_Blurry figures, voices, blue and purple._

 

_Tastes like dirt and petals. Tastes like yellow._

* * *

 

You wake up to somebody patting your cheek. 

 

“hey kid, you alive? hey!”

 

You run a mental scan. Immediately, you can tell you are way too cold. Your head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, and your thoughts are sticky-slow like honey.

 

You had tasted honey only a few times. Once at Sally’s house, you had both dipped spoons into a jar of stolen gold, giggling and snickering, little explosions of laughter muffled behind sticky small hands, don’t let Momma catch us. You had sat on beanbag chairs, and Sally had told you about a boy who she liked, and you had smiled.

 

A worried orange-and-white blur is bending over you and patting the side of your face. His hand is cold...or maybe your cheek is just hot.

 

Right. Thoughts in the present, only that’s getting harder to actually do. You can’t really see straight, and when you try to sit up, the whole world lists sideways and you end up on your face.

 

Wait, weren’t you  _ on _ your face when you passed out? Did Papyrus turn you over when he found you?

 

Shit, how long have you been lying here? A minute? An hour? Where’s Sans? You reel as the world decides it’s been on one side for too long, its side is falling asleep, and it wants to go onto its other side now. Papyrus is speaking, his fangs glinting, but his words turn to static before you can decipher them, filling your brain with white noise. He holds out what looks like a pastry, only it has little pastry ears. You take it and munch it hesitantly, then snarf the whole thing when its cinnamony goodness spreads across your thick tongue, warming your insides.

Your vision clears, your hands don’t shake as hard. You stand up and wobble a little, but you’re not quite as 

 

(You’re not sick. You’re not sick. You’re fine.)

Papyrus gives you a sidelong look, like he doesn’t trust the thumbs-up you give him, but he gets up too, brushing snow off his cargo pants (all those pockets, your jealousy is through the roof right now). 

 

“i’d ask what that was all about, but i’m starting to get a ‘don’t talk to me’ vibe from you.”

Your conscience pricks at you and you shake your head. - _ I just don’t talk-  _ you sign slowly. Papyrus watches you carefully, like he knows you’re vulnerable right now, knows to tread carefully so you don’t close away from him forever.

 

“why not?” Wow. Brutally insensitive. You appreciate it.

 

You peer at him through your bangs with your weird, red eyes. - _ Can’t. I can’t talk. My voice is broken.- _

 

His brows draw together. “broken? broken as in, like…” You shake your head and look at him pleadingly. _ Like you expect him to understand. _

 

Surprisingly, he does. He looks kinda sad for a second and you almost, almost think he cares for some reason. Maybe because he’s a “good person,” whatever that means. At this point, you’re not sure anymore.

 

_ -I can talk. Just don’t.- _

You pause. (whatareyoudoingwhatareyoudoingwhatareyoudoing) Your thoughts are still cloudy.

 

_ -Most of the time, anyway.- _

 

He squats down to your height, dropping into a crouch so he can look into your face better. He’s still taller than you even bent down. You take a small step back but don’t run away- yet.

 

He tilts his head to the side and gives you a long, hard look, staring you right in the eyes. Your normal reaction would be to drop your gaze, but he’s had so many opportunities to lash out at you and hasn’t yet, so you hold his gaze, see all the things hidden in it. You hold it for twelve point five seconds and then you drop your head, breaking the line between the two of you. Time to go back into your shell.

 

_ -Thanks for the cinnamon thing. I’m going to go meet Sans now.- _

 

He’s still watching you, but when he sees you’re not going to look at him again, he sighs and drops his own gaze. “sure, kid. Anytime.” He seems disappointed. You wonder why that is. You wonder why that bothers you.

 

You spin and march out of the woods. It’s better not to talk. Shut up, close your teeth, can it, stick a sock in it. Who really wants to hear what you have to say? Not them, and sure as  _ all hell _ not you, cause if you talk you’ll shatter the bomb in your mouth and your world would explode.

 

The snow crunches under your yellow boots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as I mentioned, this fic is going on hiatus. I have another chapter that's almost written out, and I may post that. For now, tho, assume this is the last one for a while.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who left comments/kudos!


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